Sunday, June 29, 2008

Coen Brothers

[migrated from myspace blog]

Anyone who has seen more than two Coen movies knows they like to use the same actors. Frances MacDormand and George Clooney are probably at the top of that list, but it turns out there's another very strong commonality in their films. Maybe I'm the last to figure this out, but after watching the trailer for the new Coen Brothers movie, Burn After Reading, it dawned on me that nearly every movie bearing their name can be boiled down to one basic plot point, or to borrow Hitchcock's term, MacGuffin. "Get the money." The money isn't always real, but it's nearly always the motive.

Think about it:
No Country for Old Men (drug money)
The Ladykillers (casino heist)
Intolerable Cruelty (alimony)
The Man Who Wasn't There (blackmail)
O, Brother Where Art Thou? (treasure)
The Big Lebowski (fake ransom)
Fargo (ransom)
Hudsucker Proxy (stock scam)
Miller's Crossing (prohibition $)
Blood Simple ("hit" $)

and now, back to blackmail

(Not safe for work - well, depends where you work)







Maybe, in a way, it's actually an impressive commentary on their films that it took me this long to see a common thread. Most of their movies are not all that similar, although a couple are similar in tone, but nearly all of them are very good. I'll leave it to the reader to decide which ones don't fall in with the good ones.

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